This invention relates to a connector for providing an interface between circuits on a printed circuit board or the like and a plurality of electrically conductive pins, and more particularly relates to such an interface connector for secure attachment to the wire wrapping posts of a wire wrap panel and to a printed circuit board.
It is common in computer technology to find within the electrical structure of a computer one or more wire wrap panels, each of which has an attachment side constituting a mother board for attachment of a plurality of daughter printed circuit boards and a wrapping side. A plurality of wire wrapping posts, referred to hereinafter as pins, are electrically connected to respective circuits on daughter printed circuit boards and extend outwardly on the wrapping side of the panel, whereby one or more wire conductors may be wrapped to respective pins, which usually have a square cross-section and are of a length sufficient to permit the wrapping of from one to four wires in the same substantially cylindrical plane thereabout. Thus, the primary purpose for the wire wrap panels is to provide for interconnection between various logic circuits or the like on various daughter printed circuit boards as well as to facilitate connection to other parts of a computer or the like external of the given wire wrap panel.
It is often desirable to modify an already existing computer or the like, for example, by adding additional circuits to increase or to modify function capability, to reduce the time required to complete a function, etc. To rewire the wire wrapping side of respective wire wrap panels, however, would be virtually impossible due to the large number of wire conductors often found there. One technique for effecting such modification has been to use removable connections for the daughter boards at the attachment side of the wire wrap panel, whereby modified daughter printed circuit boards may be substituted for the original daughter boards; however, this technique suffers from the disadvantage that the size of the daughter boards is usually limited, and the computer manufacturers are generally opposed to this type of modification. Moreover, connection of supplemental printed circuit boards to the pins on the wire wrapping side of the panels has not been possible, for the wrapped wire conductors often cover a substantial portion of many of the pins and do not leave sufficient pin length for connection to a conventional connector; moreover, there are no mechanical attachment supports for such connectors and/or supplemental printed circuit boards attached thereto for good mechanical connection and support to the wrapping side.